"We S
t
Msc
dca
.
Thg
the womb? There is no clear evidence. One cir
cumstance, however, prompts some doctors to
suspect pollution. In Zhenya's neighborhood
of high-rises and factories in northern Mos
cow, four children with shortened left arms
were born in just over nine months, between
September 19, 1987, and July 1, 1988. Two of
the families lived in adjacent buildings.
It was Tamara Kapanadze who discovered
that other babies like her daughter, Sonya,
were in the neighborhood.
Sonya, a blond sprite, pasted paper as
Tamara talked in their tiny apartment. At
tached to Sonya's left arm was a prosthetic de
vice with a small plastic hand. "This child has
become so dear," Tamara said. "I take what
happened as a gift from fate."
But why, why? Tamara galvanized other
mothers. They wrote to health agencies. Eigh
teen letters elicited only four replies. Eventu
ally, however, geneticists investigated. This
led to the discovery of a second cluster of four
children with shortened left arms in a neigh
borhood less than three miles from Tamara's.
They were born at about the same time. The
geneticists concluded that the clusters were
coincidence.
Terminal-limb deficiency, as this birth
defect is called, occurs worldwide at a rate
of once in 4,000 births. Clustering is not
unknown. But some scientists believe the
Moscow clusters are more than coincidence.
The Moscow sanitation office (a health
agency, not a garbage collector) has tentative
ly blamed the industrial chemical dioxin.
American experts question that finding; dioxin
has not been tied specifically to terminal-limb
deficiency.
We may never know the cause, although
geneticists at the U. S. Centers for Disease
Control have expressed interest in working in
an investigation. What we do know: Birth
defects in Moscow are alarmingly high. And
the infant death rate stands at 15 per 1,000 live
births, nearly twice the U. S. rate.
The capital's hazards shame the young
biochemist who heads Moskompriroda, the
city environment agency. "It may become so
dangerous to breathe in Moscow that we will
be wearing masks," Alexander Ishkov said.
"Cancer-causing pollutants exceed accept
able norms many times over in some neighbor
hoods." Much of the toxic load is exhaled by
Moscow's 1.3 million motor vehicles; virtually
none have exhaust-cleaning devices.
Environmental agencies can fine polluters,
but real clout is missing; Moskompriroda
received no funding for four months last year
while national and city officials argued over
who had to ante up. Still, I am told, no longer
can a big boss phone the environment office
and command it to withdraw objections to
some new enterprise. That's progress.
The Kuryanov sewage-treatment plant, one
of four catering to Moscow's needs, has an
intimate Kremlin connection--it receives the
omniscient flush.
In a field nearby I sniffed ten million tons of
sewage residue, biologically treated but still
fragrant. In other countries this sludge might
become fertilizer. But Moscow's is laced with
cadmium and other possible carcinogens; few
of the city's 2,800 factories have equipment to
remove metals, dioxin, or PCBs. Waste piped
to Kuryanov and other treatment plants
brings 15 tons of metals daily; three tons pass
into the Moscow River and on to the Volga.
In a small office crowded with computers,
biologist Sviatoslav Zabelin said, "Industry's
attitude toward the environment hasn't
changed." The fines imposed for dumping are
in his opinion merely symbolic-for many
malefactors, just a business expense.
"Svet," who once studied the antennae
communication of ants, leads the Socio
Ecological Union. Thanks to U. S. support,
some of its 200 member groups share environ
mental news via computer modems. "With
out this it would be hard to fight," Svet said,
"because the mails are so unreliable now."
Svet campaigns to change the gigantoman
iya way of thinking. He notes despairingly that
the Ministry of Atomic Energy-the unregen
erate bureaucracy that contaminated vast
areas and built Chornobyl-now proposes to
build 30 more reactors.
"We should create
efficient industries instead," Svet said. "Our
factories use three to five times more energy
than in the West to make the same goods."
Selling efficiency may be hard. People
National Geographic, August 1994